Finding new ways to engage with users in a cost-effective way will always be relevant in the online advertising industry. Years ago, Google launched “Customer Match” which allows advertisers to make use of data, such as email addresses and phone numbers to reach customers. It allows you to target ads to one specific person and bring them back to your site. This feature uses the power of data to track users and continue engaging with them online. Over the last few years, Customer Match has been limited to campaigns with more than fifty-thousand dollars in lifetime spend.
But over the last few months, Google has been making the Customer Match feature available on the Display Network. This allows you to use it even without the fifty-thousand-dollar lifetime spend!
Before, you could target specific people in your orbit for other campaigns like search and shopping. But with this feature, you are now able to show them standard ads as well!
This is valuable for businesses that want to accomplish goals such as increasing brand awareness, driving conversions, and increasing their return on investments (ROI). According to this article by Mark Irvine, Customer Match is also effective for remarketing campaigns. The feature gives you the power to control who sees your ads—which allows you to focus on your best customers. Advertisers can now create lists of customers to lead them back to their site and convert them.
The addition of Customer Match to the Display Network “harnesses the power of the Google Display Network,” as mentioned by Eamonn Frys in this article. The fusion of these two allows you to reach customers with personalized ads.
Facebook has had this ability forever, allowing advertisers to engage with customers with specific micro-targeting. And the best part is that it doesn’t involve a minimum lifetime spend. Customer Match is Google’s attempt to compete with this tool. But the fifty-thousand-dollar limit makes it inaccessible to accounts that haven’t been around for a while.
Additionally, Customer Match always goes hand in hand with lookalike lists. Lookalike lists unleash even more power: now that you’ve given us your customers, why not find other people who are like them? And what can Google’s massive machine learning and AI do if not that?
Google Customer match makes “similar audience targeting” based on the data you submit to them. Making this option available for Search, YouTube, Gmail—and, now, Display!
When a similar audience is made available to you, it will come with information about the list size on each network. Once you have this you can easily add this similar audience list to the list of users you are targeting.
As Irvine suggests in his article, the ability to use Google’s Customer Match with the Display Network simply couldn’t come at a better time. Businesses and agencies are starting their road to recovery from the economic effects of COVID-19. Thus, it is important to start considering cost-effective ways to target ads to important customers.
